I Met with Chief Winn a Month Ago about Volunteering I Told Him I Would Like To Do 3 Things to Help

I met with Chief Winn September 15th about being a volunteer again. I told him I would like to do three things to help the district. Drive equipment when needed, set up emergency communications, and follow up on illegal burns, and I explained why.

Driving

I'm too old to drag hose but I can go out with Scott on brush fires so we have 2 people making it safer. I drove truck for years and would like to drive equipment when needed. I don't know how many millennials can drive a stick shift let alone the 10 speed transmission in one of our water tenders. 

 Communications

The ability to communicate is the most important tool a fire district has. Without communications there's nothing. 

In a disaster without communications there's no way to know who needs help or what roads are open and passable. Remember our fire trucks get stuck quite often now, what if we had an earthquake?  Not knowing what roads are open becomes a life and death situation if the fire truck gets stuck.

I asked Chief Winn if since becoming chief if he had registered his cell phone with WPS the Wireless Priority System. 

He didn't even know what WPS was, so I assume his phone is not registered. He didn't know if the station phones were registered with TSP the Telecommunications Service Priority 

That means in a disaster the chief and our fire stations would have no better chance of making a call on an overloaded system than you or I do, slim to none.

When I asked the chief how the LMRFD would communicate if our local repeater and cell phones were to go down. Chief Winn looked like a deer in the headlights, you know that thousand yard stare like you don't know which way to go.  He has no idea how we would communicate in a disaster. Mohave County Emergency Management has limited emergency communications that would go to more populated areas.

I was shocked Chief Winn didn't know that after 9-11 Congress had authorized a stand alone cellular network designed and built for first responders called FirstNet. FirstNet has high power equipment for rural areas like ours.

I've been a ham radio operator for 40 years and operate a local GMRS repeater on the national emergency frequency in Dolan. I wanted to help set up an emergency communications group of volunteers for Dolan Springs and Meadview so we could gather information in a disaster and get that information to first responders. 

 Illegal Burns

I wanted to follow up on illegal burns and educate people about the dangers during a burning ban and the laws about burning garbage and burning permits. If education didn't work then call MCSO and work with a deputy to get a citation issued. I told the chief I felt many people were from other countries and may respond better to someone wearing a uniform shirt with fire dist patches rather than a tee-shirt. Every time we get called out units respond from Dolan and Meadview putting firefighters at risk running code especially at night with our cows. 

I met with Chief Winn September 15th he said he'd get back to me. Today is October 17th so I'm not sure how serious he is about volunteers.